- Sharon Unlimited
- Posts
- Community and Your Writing Business: It Takes a Village
Community and Your Writing Business: It Takes a Village
One of the reasons I love doing these Word Carnival posts is that they force me to think about my writing business in a new way. Now, I’m no stranger to community. I grew up on an island which was more like a large village — with both the advantages and disadvantages that that brings. Wherever you went there were people who knew you and all your family — there was no escape, but there were also always people to look out for you if something went wrong. In this kind of community, being a friend of a friend is a powerful thing. I’ve found the same things with the online communities I belong to — and that has both personal and business benefits. Before you can enjoy those, though, you need to figure out who and where your community is.
Finding Your Community
Freelancers, especially those who work only from home, can often feel disconnected both from the people they know offline who have regular day jobs and from the people they are acquainted with online. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, you might find that you naturally gravitate towards many communities.
In my case, I started by joining a community of new bloggers. We learned together and grew close — and some of those bloggers are still my friends today, even though we have never met in person. We are interested in each other’s stuff, like each other as people and are always happy to lend a hand — if that isn’t a community, I don’t know what is.
But that’s not the only online community I belong to. Over time, I got together with other writers and bloggers (right here on this blog and on the Five Buck Forum), with people I connected with on social media, with web tool enthusiasts and some of my clients in different groups. Some of these were self-styled communities, like forums, while others grew organically, like the Word Carnival group of bloggers. Taking part in my first Word Carnival led to becoming part of a small mastermind group we lovingly call the Blog Posse.
What Goes Around Comes Around
So what does all this have to do with my writing business? Only everything. The truth is that you cannot build anything good alone. Being part of a community means that you get:
a listening ear or shoulder to cry on
a kick up the butt if you’re procrastinating
a brain trust to help you figure out tricky issues
a ready-made network of professionals to call on
referrals which lead to paying work
and that’s just off the top of my head. Whether you’re getting purely moral support or there’s someone physically there gutting it out with you, being part of a community means you always have help. I have had help to learn SEO, to expand my service offerings, to get ebooks published, to market and promote my writing services. I get help from all my communities who refer others to me (one of my local clients has brought me thousands of dollars’ worth of business), share my stuff or happen to mention that they like something I have done. What that does for me is make it easy for me to keep doing what I’m doing. Never underestimate the power of a kind word.
Giving Back to the Community
Communities are only as good as the people participating in them and the more you put in, the more you get out. Many of my best online relationships have grown through looking to further my own knowledge of an area and help others further theirs.
It is important not to take your community for granted — and it never hurts to let people know you appreciate what they contribute to the communities you belong to. I thanked some of the people who have made a difference to me in the Thankful without Thanksgiving post I published last year. I cherish all the members of my various communities — and that includes you, if you’re reading this.
Finally, I’ve always liked that quote from John F. Kennedy: “Ask not what your country can do for you — ask what you can do for your country.” I think it applies nicely to communities, so I’m leaving you with a challenge: connect with someone in one of the communities you belong to and see how you can help that person. I guarantee you will both benefit.